Recently a student voiced a fear that I think a lot of people are afflicted by. She said that if she let go of the drama that was in her life – specifically in her relationships – she was scared that her life would be boring.

News Flash. It won’t.

Because of our low self esteem and self worth we often seek out relationships that confirm the pseudo false identities we’ve ascribed to (the ditz, the loser, the basket case, the geek, the unlovable, the neurotic, etc.) because we think – usually subconsciously – that’s what we deserve. So we seek relationships that support our false beliefs about ourselves.

So we numb our passions because others are passion-less.

We doubt our abilities because others are invested in us not being fully realized.

We stay in unloving relationships because we think we’re unlovable.

But what if you realized this truth: A deeper part of ourselves that is whole and connected and all-knowing and infinitely intelligent and brave feels the dissonance that is created in not honoring the higher part of who we are. A part of us knows. But we don’t listen to that knowing. So what we then create are inner conflicts and tension that are experienced as destructive conversations in our heads. These inner battles are then pitched outwardly in the form of our relationships.

We then expend a lot of energy – as a distraction – in fixing them, trying to make them work, talking about them, trying to analyze them, making the other one happy (or wrong), blaming them (and ourselves) for the inevitable time-wasting problems we wreak.

In my 20’s I was the king of this kind of energy-draining sabotage. (I’ll spare you the torrid details. Let’s just say it involved a lot of stalking! Eeeeek.)

The irony is that because we’re so often wrapped up in the false feelings these distracting relationships evoke (false passion, false intimacy, false love) – we’re preventing ourselves from feeling deeper connection and authentic feeling that comes from letting go of the people and circumstances that fuel our old, pseudo-self patterns. We’ve outgrown them. We can let them go. It’s safe.

The energy that has been served up in a false way (through countless distractions) is energy you will now have freed up to really get on with the life you were intended to live. You’ll discover that, at some level, these distractions have served a purpose. They’ve supported your (false) fears that you’re not good enough or deserving enough to get in the game of life and start going for the things you really want to be going for. And succeed.